Electrical connectors are known for terminating high density ribbon cable having a plurality of closely spaced small diameter round conductor wires for signal transmission, with signal conductor wires alternating across the cable with corresponding ground conductor wires. Such connectors include a plurality of terminals equal to the number of signal conductors and at least one and usually more than one terminal for the ground conductor wires which are disposed between the signal wires of the cable and are commoned within the connector. However, the connector terminals are much larger in cross-sectional dimension than the signal wires, and are disposed in the connector with dielectric material therebetween, so that the terminals are required to be spaced apart on different centerline spacing than the spacing of the conductor wires in the cable; the terminals are also commonly disposed in two rows in the connector.
In such connectors a transition adapter, sometimes termed a paddle board, is used to interconnect the cable's conductor wires with respective termination sections of the connector terminals, with the transition adapter including circuit paths which have wire-proximate ends spaced to correspond with the wire spacing and terminal-proximate ends spaced to correspond with the terminal spacing. A transition adapter for a two-row connector also provides for circuit paths to extend to upper and lower surfaces for connection with the two rows of terminals. Such a transition adapter has heretofore been a conventional printed circuit board having etched circuit paths thereon. An example of a connector utilizing such a transition adapter is disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 4,679,868. Another example of a connector for termination to a plurality of ribbon cables using a single printed circuit board is disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 4,682,828. With printed circuit boards the circuit paths are flat conductive surfaces to which the wire ends of the conductor wires must be soldered. For assuring that the wire ends are terminated to the appropriate circuit paths, the closely spaced small diameter wire ends must be held spaced apart and appropriately located such as by alignment tooling until soldering has been performed.
It is desired to provide a transition adapter which facilitates the accurate placement of the closely spaced small diameter conductor wires of a ribbon cable prior to soldering thereof to respective circuit pads of the adapter.